All on purpose. I wanted there to be a sense of ambiguity to the work. The very end gives you a certain amount of closure, but, as with real life, you don't always know how certain things end up. You just have to sort of make things up on your own. Some people have told me that they were happy with the ending, but it wasn't exactly what they thought it was going to be. You have to realize something though. I wanted to leave certain avenues open to interpretation. Sometimes things in life happen and as much as we'd like to see one thing happen over another, things don't always turn out as planned. I also purposely put in small bits of story lines and left them open not only so people could finish the story in their head, but also so I could always pick up where I left off with the first book should I decide to keep the story going. Obviously, I've decided to keep it going. Part of the reason I decided to keep going was because I looked at RH as I would a movie or a television series. We've all found a particular show that we absolutely loved. In this case, I wrote a book I felt I would like to read and as most writers do, I fell in love with my characters. Sometimes those shows we love get cancelled and we never get a good ending. Sometimes we are left with a cliffhanger and then we find out we will never know what happens after that and it really bugs the crap out of us. I didn't wanna do that. While somethings are left unsaid, the core of the story offers an ending so if there was nothing else after RH, most people would still be satisfied. However, I was not happy with that so I decided on my own that I wanted to keep it going. In fact, As I've told some people, after Recorded Butterflies, there will be 2 more books so in a sense, it's like getting a television series that gives you 4 good seasons. I had thought of maybe going further with it, but as we all know from some TV shows, by the time season 10 comes around, most are but a shell of their former selves and I did not want my characters to become stagnant and boring.
"John seems damaged, but level headed in most situations. The first chapter however has him decking a man and sending him to the pavement. Will he continue this trend? lol!"
John for the most part is a pacifist. In a sense, he is like me in that way. He is usually rather calm and it takes quite a bit to get him to react to you if you are trying to get him angry. However, he doesn't take kindly to being grabbed as most of us wouldn't. As I was writing Recorded Butterflies, I was actually thinking that I would have him take out someone in each book as a sort of running gag, something to sort of make you go "Ha! he did it again," but that seemed kind of hokey to me. As far as the characters go, Emily is the one who is a bit more of a hot head. She has that mouth on her and she is pretty no nonsense. You'd think that she would be the one laying people out, but you'd be surprised. Both John and Emily are protective of each other, and that plays out in the book.
"Do you think of certain people in your life as you write? Do you see those people as you write dialog?"
I write with avatars. What I mean by that is that I have a certain person that I see in my head each and every time I write about them. I think of the situation and I have that avatar play the scene out in my head. I've told some people who I think about when I write for a particular character and they have given me mixed feedback. I knew that would happen though as people generally do the same thing while reading as I do while writing. We all have a person we think of that takes on the role of the character and we use that image as we read. I do that all the time as I work and I'm sure I'm not nearly the first to do it. As far as who those avatars are, I won't really say unless someone specifically asks me as I don't wanna ruin their idea of who the characters are.
"What do you think the other books after Rumbling Heart will be called?"
Well, obviously the next book to be released is Recorded Butterflies. The title is both literal and abstract, double entendre. The book after that one I have decided to call "Emily Martin." It will be a slight change in the way the story has been told up until the end of RB, but it's done for a good reason. So far, the story has been told from John's point of view. The story teller shifts because of the events at the end of RB. I did consider leaving it as a first person narrative from John's perspective, but given what happens in the story, I decided to hand off the story telling to Emily for this particular time period. I think people will like this idea as I've noticed that, by far, people seem to really like Emily as described by John. It will have a different feel to it though as those people will get a first person look at her. To have someone tell you about another person is one thing, but to hear from that person directly is very different. In a sense, John has sort of looked at Emily through rose colored glasses so it's not unusual that people really like her. With her telling the story though, you get a more inside look at what she sees and what she thinks. While John was able to retell some of what Emily displayed to him, it will be different to see what she really thinks while not going through John's filter. As far as the 4th and final book in the series, I am still debating the title. I have a good idea of what it will be, but it's not set in stone.
"It seems that some of the characters change the way they react based on John being around them. Why?"
We all do that in real life as well. Sometimes having someone around you changes the way you look at the world or the way you react to certain situations. Emily, Chris, and a certain other character, in their own ways, admit that the are different when around John because of the person he is. Emily for example is a very attractive woman and is used to having men hit on her, but when she first meets John, he does no such thing. It is because of that instance that Emily pays attention to him even after their initial meeting. In a way, she had gotten so used to being the object of desire that she is almost surprised that John doesn't try anything with her. Even after seeing her again and again, still John doesn't sway in the way he sees or speaks to her. Chris is different from Emily, but there is still a connection there. Chris makes the effort to look after John just as he is getting into a relationship with (unnamed character). By the end of RH, you see why people react to John in that way and hopefully I laid it out plainly enough for everyone to see that. I also hope that the main reason people react to John in that way isn't simply because he carries charisma, but because those people in a way also affect how John views the world as well. With out them, John isn't the same person just as they, without John, are not the same either.
"How rich have you gotten from the money you made off RH?"
Are you kidding? I can barely feed myself. If it weren't for the kindness of my family, I'd be homeless. I was never really in this for money. Sure, money would be nice and I'd be a fool to turn it down should a significant sum come my way. I'd just like to make enough money to have a decent life with. I don't have to drive a Mercedes or own a 6 bedroom home. I don't have to have a fancy apartment on the 20th floor of a building nor do I have to be followed around by fans. I'd just like to make people think for a few moments on how they look at people. In a way, that was really the ultimate goal of it all. Just as I know some people look at me with disdain, I would hope that they'd see that we are all very different and regardless of our differences, we can still learn from each other. If I can do that, I will be happy. If I do en up making a fortune off this, I think I would help my family and some of my really close friends. I'd probably also move out of Texas and head to Japan or the UK if i made it that big. I hope with the release of RB, I will increase my exposure and maybe catch the eye of a big name out there.
"Do you think you are romanticizing the characters in your book? Some of the situations seem almost unreal."
The idea of a book is that you can read a story that helps you escape from the real world. That being said, certain elements of the story, such as the friendship that John and Emily develop, I've actually experienced in real life. While they may not be common, they do happen. Other elements of the book are somewhat unbelievable, but then again, who's to say they haven't really happened? We simply do not know. It's been said that real life is stranger than fiction and I believe that is true. Sometimes our lives lead us down very strange roads and by the time we get to the end of the journey, we ourselves cannot believe what's happened. With this book, John is on that road and there will come a time when he gets to the end of it. When he does, he may reflect just as any of us would. By the end of it all, you will see that all of the characters live some absolutely amazing, painful, heartbreaking, unbelievable, and down right insane lives. All that will ultimately come to a beautiful and bittersweet end that may not be all hearts and flowers, but it is an end nonetheless.
"Is Emily Martin real?"
No. She is not real.
"Are there any other writers that you look to for inspiration in regards to RH or its followups?"
If you are asking about famous writers, I would have to say Hemingway as I love his minimalist style. If you are asking about perhaps some indie writers, the only ones I've really gotten into have been Tamworth Grice and Melissa Foster. I like Tamworth's work because it, in an odd way, reminds me of Hemingway. How? It's minimalist. She lets you fill in a lot of the blanks with your own ideas. Melissa is different. Her material seems to be more along the lines of what I would write, but in most cases I would write from a different perspective. One other author I'd say would be George Carlin. His books are based mostly on the material he did in his comedy shows. Still, toward the end of his career, he was still amazing when he was on a roll. I can see how he has affected my life in the way I speak my mind. He got away with his spiky dialog because he used it in the context of a joke. I don't get that same pass because I'm not nearly as funny as he was.
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